Open Positions

We are actively looking for postdoc researchers, prospective PhD students, research assistants/interns, and visiting scholars, to join our lab. We are growing the team, so please feel free to reach out even if there is no specific opening advertised below.

General Information

  • Requirements:
    • good communication skills.
    • self-motivated.
    • strong background in either (or multiple): machine learning/optimization/math/programming.
  • What we offer:
    • competitive salary.
    • strong supervision.
    • excellent research environment.
    • world-class collaborations.
  • How to apply:
    • interested applicants please always (first) send application materials to lintao [at] westlake.edu.cn.
    • please try your best to convince us of your background and interests.
    • applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis (we might not respond to generic requests).

Postdoc Researchers

We have multiple postdoc positions available (flexible starting dates). Applicants with a PhD degree who have background on one or more of the following research topics are encouraged to apply:

  • (distributed) machine learning/deep learning.
    • efficient learning and inference methods.
    • distributionally robust optimization, and out-of-domain/out-of-distribution generalization.
    • efficient and/or robust collaborative learning methods.
    • algorithms/applications for semi-supervised learning or self-supervised learning.
    • understanding on loss landscape, training dynamics, etc.
    • theory for deep learning.
    • methods beyond backprop.
    • etc.
  • computer science/electrical engineering/etc (with provable strong programming/math background).
  • applied math, operations research, optimization, statistics, control theory, or information theory.

A Joint Postdoc Position

We have a special joint postdoc position with Dr. Sebastian U. Stich (TT Faculty at CISPA, Germany).

The candidate will be affiliated with Westlake University (two-year contract) and will interact and collaborate closely with both faculty in a hybrid collaboration form, with the possibility to visit each group with a similar time percentage. He/she will work on foundational machine learning challenges and will lead projects. We offer a competitive salary. Please reach out to us if you have further questions on the project organization.

Applicants with a Ph.D. degree and a strong academic track record in one or more of the following research topics are encouraged to apply: (a) optimization for deep learning, (b) distributed and federated optimization, (c) efficient/robust deep learning and inference.

You may also get extra support through CSC-DAAD Fellowship or Westlake Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women.

Prospective PhD Students

We still have 2-3 PhD positions available for Fall 2023. Please apply through this online application system.

NOTE: Candidates with whom we worked with are implicitly preferred (or shortlisted): it is recommended that you first apply for any of the (paid) positions listed below. We also recommend you read posts about the Factors to Consider When Choosing a Lab for PhD Training and A Survival Guide to a PhD.

Topics for Fall 2023

  • Theory for collaborative learning under imperfect distributed environments
  • Collaborative deep learning for multi-modal data
  • Optimization for Deep Learning
  • Robustness and Generalization in Deep Learning

Topics (tentative) for Fall 2024

  • Algorithm-hardware co-design for efficient learning and inference systems
  • Optimization for Deep Learning (data-centric)
  • Collaborative deep learning under imperfect distributed environments
  • Test-time robust learning & inference systems under various (time-varying) distribution shifts

Research Assistants/Research Interns/Visiting Scholars

We have several (at least 3 months, but >= 6 months is preferred) open positions.